We are taught in school that there are many different forms of slavery, and that slavery did happen throughout history. However, I believe what is usually left out of the histories that we are taught are the views of the African people, and how they felt on their journies to the Americas. It is important for people to begin to understand how the people who were being enslaved felt, to further one’s understanding of the hardships they went through during these times. One is able to examine how the African enslaved people felt during their journey and upon their arrival to the Americas by focusing on their emotions and expressions within etchings and texts that were created during the 1800’s.
The emotions and expressions shown in an etching can reveal more than one thinks. The artifact that I chose to take a close look at is an etching from a painting by Francois Biard, created in 1850 called “Bartering for Slaves on the Gold Coast”, from a sample in the Noel Pittman Collection at The New York Public Library’s The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: “In Motion: The African American Migration Experience”. This picture depicts how Africans that were captured were treated as they were transported to the “new world” from their homes. The etching is lucid and shows many details in the characteristics of the slaves, and the Europeans that are buying them. The etching shows slaves getting branded like cattle, children being ripped away from their mothers, Africans being brutally whipped by the Europeans, all while the Europeans are bartering for the Africans that they want to use as slaves. The expression on the faces of the many Africans is of horror and confusion as they are torn away from their loved ones and abused. There is a European man holding shackles in his hands, known to be used on slave ships to hold three slaves at a time; two adults and one child between them. However, there is a darker “African” man sitting on the floor smoking a pipe watching the chaos happen while the others are being enslaved. There are also other “white” people, near the African man smoking, that are just laying around with objects in their hands watching the commotion happening in this particular area. I believe that this painting tells the story of how Africans and all other people that were captured and sold as slaves were treated once they stepped off of the slave ships they were on. It depicts the horrors that people had to go through in the time of slavery, and how the people who bought slaves treated them. The etching puts slavery into a different perspective when the viewer looks at this picture and sees the reality of the transatlantic slave trade and cruelty that was happening in the world.
There are also poems that were written during this time period that depict how Africans may have felt during their travel from their homeland to the Americas. Although one can learn much about the emotions of Africans coming to the Americas from an etching, poems and literature can also provide great insight. The poem “On being brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, a black woman, is about the narrator traveling from his / her home in Africa, and coming to a new land that he / she has never been to before and having to conform to a new way of living. The poem reveals how the narrator’s feelings on being brought to a new land, and having to change the way that he / she is used to. One can see what the narrator was thinking when he / she said, “Taught my benighted soul to understand” (l.2). This can possibly mean that someone who the narrator met during his / her time in the Americas taught her to understand why she was moving from her home to a new land, and why he / she has to conform to who the Europeans want him / her to be. One can see that the narrator knows that he / she is different than all of the other people in this new land when he / she says “Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, / May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train” (l.7-8). Here I believe that the narrator is justifying the changes that he / she has to make in order to have a better chance of treatment in the Americas. The narrator here is claiming that people that are as “black as Cain” (l.7) are able to be saved and join the “angelic train” (l.8). The imagery of “angelic” brings to mind tiny, mainly white angels that are in many painting in churches. So for the narrator to say that blacks are able to join this community means that they have the possibility of joining the majority of the white population.
The etching and the poem that I have chosen can be compared as they both express and showcase the emotions of slaves, and how they must have felt during their transition. In the etching, one can clearly see the emotions of the slaves that have just arrived in the Americas. They are all scared and traumatized and do not know what to expect. In the etching, it seems as if the new slaves are trying to hold on to what little they have left. In the poem by Phillis Wheatley, one can also see the emotions of the African people. However, it is in a light that shows how living in the Americas has changed Africans to be someone they do not want to be, and having to conform to their new society in order be remotely accepted.
All in all, there are many ways that one can find out more about the history of how African people were treated upon their arrival to the Americas, as well as how they reacted to everything once they have been here for a while. Etchings and Literature such as poems help to give great insight into occurrences that happened during specific time periods. I would, however, like to learn more about the children who came on the slave ships that traveled. It would be interesting to find out about their memories, and if they ever got to meet their parents. Although those are only some of the many questions that arose, I am sure the answers are out there waiting to be found.
Works Cited
Biard, Francois. Bartering for Slaves on the Gold Coast, Etching from a Painting.
c.1850. 485354. The New York Public Library’s The Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture: In Motion: The African American Migration Experience. Sample
Noel Pittman Collection.
http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/detail.cfm?migration=1&topic=99&id=29001&page=6&type=image
Wheatley, Phillis. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Complete Writings,
edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin, 2001.
